“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.”– Margaret Shepard
I'll be in Los Angeles Friday attending Transmedia, Hollywood 2 at UCLA. If you're in the LA area, I'll be there for about a week afterwards as well--contact me if you'd like to meet up.
Going to LA completely on a hunch. Originally, I was going to wait until I had enough resources for this trip, but I could die waiting. Instead, I vowed as soon as I had enough for one-way fare, I'd commit. Booked April 7th 'randomly.' And, later, learn that the yearly Transmedia conference would be the following day.
Random? Risk? Or 'twas it inspired?
Well, we'll see. Let the chips fall as they may.
The word hazard features prominently in the title of the participatory storyline, I'm working on. (It's partly set in L.A.) The actual etymology of hazard is interesting, with Spanish and Arabic undertones: a game of chance. So it seems fitting that I take the first "chance." (Does chance actually exist?)
"Who can tell the dancer from the dance?" - William Butler Yeats
This so-called "Hazard" story may unfold to become something immersive along the lines of this Vanished participatory 'game' (partnership of MIT and the Smithsonian) launching today, April 4th.
Vanished invites middle-school kids to explore a make-believe mystery in a narrative setting as they participate by doing science.
Science in the classroom is a far cry from the exploratory nature of science in the field. Same goes for our own lives--it's not exactly found in books, blogs or workshops. I want to do Life and expand its mysteries, not be lectured at.
“Current science instruction relies too heavily on memorization and activities with predetermined outcomes causing many kids to lose interest in science and have misconceptions about what it means to be a scientist,” said Scot Osterweil of MIT Education Arcade. -- via ArtDaily.org
Reading The Art of Immersion, by Frank Rose, I was quite taken by the snippet where J.J. Abrams (for a person that doesn't own a television set, I was pretty hooked on Lost) is talking about infinite possibility.
". . . Abrams described his lifelong infatuation with Tannen's Magic Mystery Box, a $15 cardboard box he had bought at a New York magic shop as a kid. He never opened it, though it sits even now on a shelf in his office."
"I realized I haven't opened it because it represents something important to me," he explained at TED. "It represents infinite potential. It represents hope. It represents possibility. And what I love about this box, and what I realize I sort of do whatever it is that I do, is find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential."
Mystery, he went on to say, is the catalyst for imagination. What are stories if not mystery boxes? What is Lost if not a mystery box? Star Wars? What creates mystery if not the deliberate withholding of information?
... "I mean, look inside yourself and figure out what is inside you," Abrams said, "because ultimately, you know, the mystery box is all of us."
I must admit, I know I would have had to open the Magic Mystery Box--especially when I was a kid. And then go find another treasure to open.... one box leading to the next.... surprise after surprise.
p.s. All new (and current) Encanto newsletter subscribers are gifted with their very own Magic Mystery Box via snail mail through April 24th... a melange* of tailor-selected found objects and handmade inspiration from moi. You are highly encouraged to OPEN the box! Infinite possibility is infinite--so there's so much more where that came from.
* Definition of MÉLANGE: a mixture often of incongruous elements
ART CREDITS: Pandora by John William Waterhouse. Pandora’s name means “all gifts.” Psyche Opening the Golden Box, (detail) also by Waterhouse.
I just love everything from J.J. Abrams. good luck to L.A.!!
Posted by: Kryssning Karibien | Apr 09, 2011 at 07:05 AM